I love bacon. I also buy the pre-cooked stuff, vacuum seal individual portions, and store them in the fridge. They don't spoil when on the trail, but I usually eat them in the first couple of days. I feel the need to burn the packaging in a campfire, as the smell is certain to attract critters.

If you can find Wild Bill's Bacon Jerky, it's easily the best trail bacon I've found. Sometimes places like World Market will carry it, or you can order online. Thick cuts of bacon, great texture (more tender than normal beef jerky, but not flaccid like undercooked bacon). Truly incredible stuff.

My advice is to make freezer bag couscous with butter flavor, cheese, garlic, pepper, onion powder and other spices... add the bacon and it tastes like a mashed version of the best baked potato you've ever eaten. My favorite breakfast for the trail.

Anyway, a pound of bacon is really excelent on the trail. The downside is the smell and greasy hands. I carry it raw, packed in extra salt. I have been out with it a couple weeks with no spoilage. A couple strips added to rice, macaroni, potatoes or other "starch" food will really spice a meal it up.

Precooking is OK. But this will often try out any fats/oils. Dehydrating is good but will make a mess in the dehydrator. There are way too many fats in most bacon to dehydrate well.

Generally I use two or three strips per supper, often added to a rice side or soup/stew. This should be packaged at home in small "snack" sized zip-locks with a little salt. Otherwise, it makes a mess with all the fats. I use it the same as salt pork. This is fairly traditional, since salt pork has been used on longer expeditions/wooden ships for a few hundred years. Very high in calories and keeps very well. The problem with modern pork is that adding salts will semi-dehydrate the meat, driving off excess water into solution with the salt. You can safely pour off the water brine after a couple days without effecting storage. Keeping the water in the meat is more a commercial way to get you to pay more for the meat, typical of most stores.

Due to the possible tape worms, it should always be cooked fairly well done. Preserving with salt will NOT kill eggs/cycts in the meat. It should be cooked to 160-170F for about 15 seconds to kill the worm. In most western countries, there is virtually no problem with pork, but I really don't want worms.

I have carried it raw in the past for shorter trips. I would cook it on a stick over a campfire or fry it. But it's really heavy that way. The great thing about the precooked stuff is it has a lot of calories per ounce so it's not a heavy luxury food.It's good to know that raw bacon can keep well. That means that the pre-cooked stuff should stay good for a long time.How dry is bacon jerkey? Bacon is so thin that it gets pretty dry when cooked. It almost seems like dehydrating and cooking would achieve the same result unless you made it 100% dry.

Oberto brand now has "bacon jerky" -- they're a mass market brand. I got it as a 3-pack at Sam's Club. Already tried it, and it (not surprisingly) tastes just like regular bacon, plus it's not TOO hard (softer than jerky, which is a good thing IMHO). Will be taking it on my upcoming Sierras trip.